Selling home: Tips to attract viewers?

We want to sell our house. It's been on the market for about a month now, and we've only had one viewing. I guess we should drop the price, but we can't go to low or we won't be able to afford another decent home! There is another house for sale around the corner, very similar to ours and a bit nicer inside, but not on such a nice spot, but it's on for less than ours and hasn't sold in a year! Soooo.. I'm a tad worried there.Our house is lovely (in my opinion) as is the location. It's advertised on rightmove. Any ideas how we can get more viewers?First, of course, is to lower the price. But what else?

If she wants to buy, I'll do that. She now saw the house and got all dreamy and enthusiastic. However, her partner was more practical and really doesn't want to live in this town - and he is right; he'd have to travel one and a half hour to and from work every day....So I reckon they won't buy it - still nice to get such a positive reaction though.

Sherbertpips, I seem to have missed your comments. What pictures of the road do you mean? And what is FY8? Is it some forum expression that I am unfamiliar with, or is it a postcode? It certainly isn't our postcode... I know about the plants... they are my weakness. I tried taking pics without them but then it looked really bleak and horrible. At least that's what I thought... Anyway, I hope it doesn't have too much of a negative impact, because we want to leave it as it is for now. I can't face doing more estate agents work!They are an online agent, and I must say I regret going for them! The worst to me was that they got the measurements totally wrong at first, and also the shape of rooms on the floor plan - HOW can they possibly get that wrong?? We had to correct it. And the description, And the photos.

And worse: The viewer we have coming this evening is not even through them... it is somebody we kind of know, and who has made all sorts of admiring comments when she has visited our home in the past. So when she saw it was for sale she really wanted to have a look... even though she actually needs to be in Truro. Never mind, she is a nice person and we are always in anyway.

Olgaga... It is priced well - at least 6k under the lowest valuation, and as I explained, the houses you found only confirm that! Mind you, we have only been trying to sell since January; it's not as if we've been on the market for ages... and we now do have another viewer coming, too. :-) Although they are not likely to buy; they actually wanted a house in Truro, I think. But you never know...

I understand your point about the front garden, Kindlemum - I feel the same about driveways- as a non driver I don't like paying tons of money for an ugly patch to park a car we don't have; that has indeed put me off considering two houses... 10 k extra for something we won't be using did seem a bit ridiculous.But we don't just have a big front garden; we have that in addition to a big back garden!

If you really want to sell, you've got to accept you're competing with those other sellers for the few buyers there are. The best way to do that is on price. It's as simple as that, really. Price it to sell, and it'll sell.

Possibly a personal or regional thing, but we place no value at all on having a massive front garden - in fact I tend to view it as a negative because the chances are I'm being charged for something I won't use. As long as the front door doesn't open directly on to the street, a la Corrie, anything over a couple of feet is wasted on me. I'm entirely happy with houses where there's just half a dozen or so steps between door and street.

I know lots of people round here who feel the same. It's an area here where lots of houses have a bigger front garden than back and they're hard to sell. The ones with a good back garden sell much faster and for a lot more money. I'm only interested in enclosed back gardens the kids can play in so, as a family home, you may be investing the front garden with a value that your potential buyers aren't. Just a thought.

He, olgaga.. I know all these houses except the bungalow. I also know my area quite well... and taking these houses into consideration, I'd say our price is very reasonable!

Soo.. since I am getting all carried away here, I'll jsut type down something that probably no one will read. About the houses you mentioned:

The first one is the only one comparable to ours - and I can see it from our front window. It was on the market for the same price as ours is now, so I assume it has been sold for the price that is now mentioned. (Which would be an offer we might well accept, too...)The house is not bigger than ours - check the room sizes. The back garden is not bigger than ours either - only tidier, so they have more of it on the pic. Their front garden is almost non existent, whereas ours is massive. I consider their decoration to be very outdated... but that may be a matter of taste. The only thing they have that we don't is parking on site... and that may be their big selling point. But they sold very quickly, so that makes me more hopeful for ours.

The other houses you showed: The 4 bed is a mid-terrace, it is in Newlyn, which is not Penzance, and it has no real garden. (courtyard garden is more like a path!) And it 'needs updating'. It is very close to the sea, but has no view of it, while still being at risk of flooding when the weather is wild, and it's on a noisy busy road.

Parc Wartha crescent requires updating and has lots of road noise.

The three cheaper houses are all mid terrace and they are tiny, with no gardens.

The Gwavas house has such lovely views because it is on a VERY steep hill. It is also in Newlyn, so not in Penzance, it's on a very rough estate (although in their defence they have been improving), and it needs updating.

That sold house on the seafront is smaller than ours, with mini garden, and has sold for 'offers over' 150000, which was apparently 'priced to sell'.That bungalow is the only one I have not ever seen... but it says needs updating, it is again in Newlyn and can apparently only be reached via a foot path?

You missed this house: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-15535983.html?premiumA=trueIs around the corner of ours, admittedly nicer than ours, and not selling. But I had a look at it the other day, and, well... I think their neighbours may be the problem...

There are seventeen 3 bed properties available at your price point or slightly above in your immediate area. The only ones which have sold is a detached bungalow, and one with spacious rooms which is practically on the seafront.

Okay looking at the link I agree it looks a lovely house, with great gardens.However:1. Get the pictures of the road removed, lord know why they have put so many on there!2. Get them to re-do the picture of the front of the house as a portrait shot from the perspective of where the cars are parked on the road so you get the green in front the the house, try a few shots yourself so you can describe what you want.3. There are a lot of plants on your pics. You clearly love plants (as do I) however they do date a house and make it look old fashioned. 4. Speak to you EA every week, be a pain in the backside. There are 133 properties for sale in FY8 between £130k and £160k, that is a lot of competition. If the EA is going to recommend your property you need to make them remember it.5. Check when it appears in the paper or advertised in the EA's window.

I agree with you about the word density, marina. It is too much. I've changed it along with adding the bullet points, and even before I read your explanation I took out that double mention of the green! I suspect the unwanted dash is still there though; didn't notice that.Anyway, it's off to the agent. I think the full description is still too long, but I'm fed up with doing the job of an estate agent! Hopefully the bullet list will make up for too much rambling, and new pics will attract many many viewers... or just one, as long as they buy the house!

I would have a boring bathroom photo anyway just to show you have one.

Feature points would really help as the decription is very wordy/dense.

...on a quiet close overlooking a green. The large green between this house and those opposite makes for a quiet position on the most ...

This pretty much says the same thing twice.

....from lovely country- and coastal walks.

There's an unwanted dash there...

You're right - there are no 'grammar' errors - I put that badly - sorry - I meant there's way too many words and description particularly at the beginning and at the end in the OUTSIDE section - really, I don't think people read that much stuff.

If you look at what other agents do, there's often very little narrative - because people won't read it.

I was looking at your listing and couldn't work out what was nagging at me until I realised I couldn't see any radiators in your pictures - which made me think you might not have central heating.Then I thought I can't tell if your windows are UPVC double glazed from the pictures.

Would it be worth doing a Features - bullet points at the top of your listing/narrative/description -

I think it works better than having to plough through quite a lot of dense writing looking for clues. As I don't think you actually say you have central heating and the double glazing is 'alluded to' rather than clearly stated.

Would work better for me as a viewer. There are still some grammar erros/missing words in your description too.

Good luck though - the pictures are much better and I wouldn't change them any further.....

No longer angry at my poor partner - he did bake me a lovely chocolate cake! Of course he is still completely unrealistic with his expectations for a new house/live... but I guess that's what I'm there for.

Anyway we now have our new photos up. Anyone care to have a look?They are not very good, but I do think they show the house better than the first ones did. For some reason the estate agent also kept a few of the old pics. Not the worst ones, but it does mean that some pics are completely pointless. I think it may be because they need the same amount of pics to fill up their brochure, and we sent them less.

Here is the link:http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-25594281.html?premiumA=true

I am now decluttering - really annoying, that- and taking new pictures, all of which are hideous. I am NOT a photographer!!!I'm having all sorts of very resentful thoughts towards potential buyers, estate agents and even my partner - 'cause he is the one who wants to move house to chase his pipe dream existence on a totally insufficient budget...

Yeah, I saw that with the garden. Funny thing is, that garden is actually more overlooked than ours, because the houses behind it are on a higher level than the sold house! Well, it shows the effect of sensible photography, doesn't it? They have private parking space though, and we don't - so that may have been an issue in their fast sale. Although there is plenty of parking space around the green.

I don't know what the agreed price is. I'm thinking it may be the price that now shows on the advert, because I think the original asking price was 149950, and this is 2000 less.

We had that agent come around at our house, and they told us to put it on the market for no less than 155000, and not sell for less than 150000.... In fact, we had several agents say the same thing - which is weird, because our own estimate was 145000-150000...

Tomorrow is supposed to be a sunny day, and we got hold of a camera with wide-angle lens, so we're gonna try to take better pics. I am a bit worried as we are not exactly great photographers... but when I tied to take pics at first, I at least had the sense to try and keep the neighbours' properties off the photo! Next time I think we should skip estate agents all together - they are not that much better than we are!

They quite possibly didn't look at your house because it was over their budget. It was on for 10K more than this house when they would have viewed. And the dated decor of this house would give the inpression that there might be more wiggle room.

Also the pictures are better. The house isn't, by a long shot, your's is much nicer, but the angle of the pics shows the space in the rooms better, and the garden doesn't look as overlooked as yours. It may well be, but you can't tell from the pics, where you had that pic from upstairs showing all of the neighbours gardens.

I would get that agent round and get them to do a valuation. They will probably tell you what that house went under off at.

No, Marjorie, that is not the house I meant. Not sure why the link didn't work...I'll try again.http://www.your-move.co.uk/property-for-sale/house-for-sale-penmere-road-penzance-tr18-3-sale-id-527956585

I can't imagine that someone would not even inquire about a house that interests them because the estate agent isn't 'right' ...if I want a house I don't care what estate agent is selling it! We recently went looking at houses, and the best viewing we had was done by the actual owners. I feel you tend to get a better impression of what it is like to live in a home if you get to meet the owners.

I think it can be an advantage if the sellers show you aroundIt makes sens for us to do the viewings ourselves, because we both work from home and we figured it would be a major pain if we'd have to leave the house (and work!) for every viewing... and sitting here while an agent is showing viewers isn't that great either. Ofcourse with the lack of viewings we've had so far that isn't a problem.

But I'm still hopeful; we've only lowered the price just before the weekend, so who knows; we may get swarmed by viewers next week!